Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born in Tiruchchirapalli on 7th November 1888. He grew up in an atmosphere of music, Sanskrit literature and science because his father who was a scholar in Physics and Mathematics loved music. Raman stood first in every class and was considered a genius. He joined Presidency College where he chose Physics (study of matter and energy) as the main subject. Love of science, enthusiasm for work and the curiosity to learn new things were natural to Raman. Colour, sound and light held special fascination for him.

By the time he was eighteen, his writings on his subject were being published in international academic journals. At the age of nineteen, Raman was appointed the Assistant Accountant- General in the Finance Department in Kolkata. He would still spend his spare time in the morning and evening in the laboratory. After some years, he joined Kolkata University as a professor of Physics mainly because he could use the laboratory for his research. It is here that he- did his award-winning research. He did India very proud and was conferred Knighthood by the British Government in 1929. In 1930 he became the first Indian scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his research work on the behaviour of light. This behaviour of light was thereafter known as the Raman Effect. He founded the Raman Research Institute at Bangalore.